Interesting topic - take for example one of the biggest grifts....spending $50K+ per year on University eduction. To me, it's pretty obvious that this is a grift, and it's not necessary to take on that kind of debt unless you are seeking a well paying job that requires it (becoming a doctor or an immunologist vs. becoming for a example a software developer where there are many low cost schools and tons of online material). But even then, you can goto a less expensive university - you don't need to goto Stanford to be a doctor. And if you choose to go the expensive route, it's on you.

But there is a huge social pressure to take on that debt. So who's fault is it that one is taking on loans for expensive universities or other goods that really aren't necessarily and are often bad decisions. You could easily make an argument for both sides, for example:

1) Don't listen to the BS. If somebody told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it. If you make a bad decision, sorry, but it's on you - freedom goes both ways.

ALTERNATIVELY

2) The sophistication of the grifts is so good (constant social pressure from professional marketing people, misleading information, selection bias for top universities), that we need to do something about it. Ok, great, what exactly are we going to do and who is going to do it? The government? They can't seem to to do hardly anything right - they are most interested in their lobbyist supporters and the optics - not actually setting goals, measuring success, and adjusting to get the correct outcome. Sadly to adjust in the governent realm, is to publically admit that you were imperfect - but that's the way the real world works in just abouy everything, except for politics.

Any reasonably intelligent and responsibile person should know this, but yet we can't seem to get this all together. Why? I guess our world is so competitive, and so many of us use distractions to get by (sex, drugs, consumerism), that it's just too hard.